


The Silences

by branwyn



Series: Compatible Damage [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Blackmail, Domestic Violence, F/M, Genderswap, The Abbey Grange, The Gloria Scott, casefic, girl!john
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-12
Updated: 2013-05-08
Packaged: 2017-11-03 16:46:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/383676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/branwyn/pseuds/branwyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love is an inconstant variable.</p><p> </p><p>An AU genderswap casefic based loosely on AC Doyle's "The Abbey Grange", and other stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

1.

It's three minutes after eight in the morning. Sherlock has been awake and dressed since three. He doesn't know why people say he never sleeps. Comprehensive sleep deprivation leads to death in humans within a week. He is still alive, and therefore, logically, he sleeps. Transparent. Nobody thinks.

Joanna has been sleeping as well. And she too is alive (alive, alive.) 

Sherlock looks out the window. 

The light that filters through the sitting room windows is weak and grey, which, taken together with his knowledge of the average temperatures in England in April over the past fifty years, leads to an inference that, outside, the day is already cool. 

Sherlock rises from his chair, crosses the room, and switches on the radiator.

It's not for him. He rarely notices the ambient temperature unless it is either cold or wet enough to interfere with some preferred activity. But Joanna is injured, which will impair her body's ability to regulate internal heat production, so it is necessary to make the flat warmer.

Sherlocks sits again, and stares at the door of his bedroom. Joanna is in there, undergoing the laborious process of dressing herself for the day without the use of her dominant hand. It would be logical for Sherlock to help her, but Joanna hasn't asked and he finds himself inexplicably shy of offering. Illogical, tedious. They are both adults. 

She'll probably fall over trying to get into her trousers. Yet here he sits, as though trapped. Highly annoying.

To ground himself, he takes stock of his surroundings, cataloguing sensory impressions, beginning with the visual. 

The sitting room is more cluttered than normal. There are no dirty dishes, but there are more books, more papers, more half-drunk mugs of abandoned tea strewn about the various surfaces. 

Auditory data is sparse. Sherlock isn't making any noise. He's listening for the sound of a thud, a muffled curse, from behind his door. It hasn't come. Nothing else is relevant, save that the traffic outside, both pedestrian and automotive, is normal for the time of day, week, and year.

In the olfactory sense, there is a little more to be gleaned. The flat smells of dust, book mold, and the reagent in last night's experiment (sulfur)--again, normal. But Mrs Hudson is frying something. Later in the day, she will clean the downstairs, introducing the pungency of household chemicals, but that is a deduction based on the fact that he helped her carry the shopping in yesterday and not steeped in any present data.

Taste: he's cleaned his teeth recently, but not recently enough to still taste the toothpaste. Touch: he's wearing clean, pressed clothing for the first time since the night James Windibank and his accomplice were arrested. He'd wanted clarity, and the sharp, defined edges that concrete action impose on his thoughts. So he'd dressed for it. 

What else?

Touch, again: for the last few nights, he has lain in bed beside Joanna while she slept. (She has fewer nightmares when he's present; proper rest accelerates the healing process. It's only practical.) The hollow of his palm has covered the sharp, narrow jut of Joanna's hip over the blanket. (She's too thin for her frame.) The pads of his fingers have traced the lines of her shoulders and arms, testing the pliancy of her muscles before and after she's fallen asleep. (She is less tense throughout the day when she wakes in his bed.)

He's had ample opportunity to pore over this information systematically, only to be confounded by the conclusions. The experiments will have to be repeated. Awake, Joanna conceals evidence, skews data. She pretends she isn't in pain. She's a stoic (defensive quality that developed from neglect in childhood.) Annoying. Complicates the scientific approach. Sherlock has to rely on his own deductions in order to accurately anticipate her requirements. He must observe. But he's distracted.

_I love you._

Three nights ago, in the dark, she'd said, _I love you._

Sherlock had said the only honest thing he could say in return.

Three words. Auditory data. A deduction made by Joanna, based on primary research he doesn't have access to. Perplexing. There is a contradiction imbedded in her hypothesis (Sherlock does not inspire love in other people.) He doesn't know what alterations to their current arrangements might be implied or demanded by the fact that she chose to make this declaration to him. (What does she want him to do?)

She'd been heavily drugged. Pharmaceuticals (NSAIDs, benzodiadepines, opiates) and naturally respondent biochemicals occurring in the wake of extreme stress and perceived threat to life. She'd been asleep within seconds of speaking. Her utterance had occurred in the end stages of a semi-hyponotic state. Research indicates that information provided by subjects under these conditions may be unreliable.

 _I love you._ If feelings are reciprocated, the traditional response is, _I love you, too._ Sherlock had not responded in the traditional manner. She hasn't exhibited any signs of distress over this, but she also hasn't repeated herself. He's not even certain she remembers what she'd said.

Sherlock wonders if it would be appropriate to remind her. 

He doesn't know what the concept of love entails to Joanna, and therefore he has no idea if his feelings for Joanna resemble her feelings for him. It's not impossible. Nothing in the universe is unique. Perhaps they mirror each other, like synapses. Still, he can't make a determination based on a single use of subjective terminology. Annoying. Why hasn't a more specific vocabulary evolved for such a fundamental concept?

The last time he was this frustrated with a topic of study, he'd been twelve and attempting physics for the first time. Through the gaps in its mathematical underpinning, he'd spotted bottomless dark chasms of terrifying illogic that sent him running back to the measurable precision of chemistry. He'd retained useful aspects, such as classical mechanics, but deleted everything else: black holes, baryogenesis, dark matter, every last tentacled monstrosity of unreason stuffed down the drainpipe of his memory. 

Joanna had been appalled by his ignorance of heliocentrism. She's lucky he hadn't deleted the sun.

He could survive without physics, though. That had been obvious. Joanna is another matter. He's certain of that, but he doesn't know if it makes up for his lack of certainty about anything else. He only knows that it is vitally important not to stuff this up. (Joanna is undeletable.)

Under any other circumstances, he would rely on Joanna's expertise to supply his deficiencies. But he has the dim notion that, in this case, a more strenuous independent effort is required.

He's really only got one other source to consult.

*

"Oh, hello, Sherlock." Mrs Hudson looks up, surprised, but pleased to see him. "Do you want to come in? Kettle's just boiled."

Some things are constant. For over a decade now, every time he has knocked on Mrs Hudson's door, her kettle has either just boiled, or she was just about to put it on. He follows her inside.

"And how's Jo this morning?" she asks. She opens a cabinet and takes down a large brown teapot. The teapots used to sit on the top shelf of the large china cabinet against the opposite wall. The cabinet is taller than she is; she'd used a plastic stepping stool to reach it. He sees the stool against the wall. There are cookbooks piled on it; there is dust on the cookbook on top of the stack. Inference: her hip no longer permits her to climb onto the stool, so she's moved commonly used items, like the teapot, to the cabinet beside the stove.

"Joanna is--" What? Fine? Manifestly untrue. "The same as yesterday." Six to twelve weeks for complete healing of both the arm and facial fractures. Barely three days have passed. Her face looks painted, so vivid is the bruising.

"I'll have some breakfast for you to take up in a few minutes," says Mrs Hudson. "And today's my day for baking--silly me, you know that. There'll be scones."

A gift, disguised as a statement of fact. Some requital is indicated. "Joanna likes your scones." Sherlock drums his fingers against the table. She carries the teapot over and pours him a cup, sets the sugar bowl down beside it."Your hip's getting worse."

She pauses, then shakes her head with a smile. "Well, it was never going to get any better at my age, was it? That's why I kept the downstairs for myself."

"Practical." She's rarely otherwise. Like Joanna. Lestrade too, for that matter. As a personality trait, it takes the edge off of idiocy.

"Just as well my old Stephen's dead," she says lightly. "He would have been a terrible landlord, and how I'd have kept the both of us on just his pension, I don't know."

Sherlock blinks. _My old Stephen_ = Stephen Hudson, tried for murder in Florida in 2000, convicted, sentenced to death. Killed by a guard during an escape attempt within a week of his arrival. To the best of his recollection (which is excellent) this is the first time Mrs Hudson has mentioned him since Sherlock became her tenant.

"I daresay his income as a blackmailer would have helped things along," Sherlock says. He leaves his tone blank, so it can be a joke if she wants it to be.

"Bless you, I never saw a penny of that money, and I don't suppose I ever would, even if he'd come to a different end." 

"No," Sherlock concedes. 

There's a moment of not-entirely awkward silence.

Mrs Hudson smiles down at him, then turns back to the stove. Sherlock watches her remove rashers from the skillet with a fork and set them aside to drain. She cracks four eggs into a bowl and whisks them with a fork. 

"Oh, Marie told me such a funny joke yesterday," she says, with her back to him. "Marie--that's Mrs Turner to you, dear, from next door--she says, there's a little old lady, never worked a day in her life, going to an office to apply for a position. The man behind the desk looks at her CV, and, seeing she hasn't got any work experience, asks her what her qualifications might be. She says to him, 'Young man, I can get the eggs, the bacon, and the toast all onto a plate at the same time before anything goes cold--and if that isn't management, I don't know what is!'"

She giggles over the punchline. Sherlock smiles, without quite meaning to. It's been a long time since he sat at her table and let her talk at him this way. Normally he hasn't the time or the patience, but in his present state of mind it's oddly soothing.

"Anything on today?" she asks. "I hope you're not intending to drag that poor girl off to Scotland Yard any time soon. She needs rest, you know."

"I'm perfectly aware of that," says Sherlock, frowning into his tea cup. "There's nothing on. Only idiots are capable of sending me emails these days, and Lestrade hasn't called."

"Good," says Mrs Hudson briskly. "All the same, you know how you get when you're bored. If anything does come up, I'm sure Jo would be sensible enough not to mind you keeping your hand in. Better than putting up with one of your strops." She flips the eggs with a spatula. "Or your hovering."

"What? I don't hover." Sherlock narrows his eyes at the back of her head. "Do I hover?"

"Now don't take on, I wasn't saying it to criticize. It's only natural to want to look after her." She giggles again. "Only I do remember that doctor, when you came to see me after my little tumble. Threatened to have you sectioned. You didn't half scare him, poor man."

 _My little tumble._ Typical Mrs Hudson shorthand for nearly being murdered. Her husband had beaten her, then shoved her down a flight of stairs, leaving her for dead. People do tend to underestimate her. At the expense of his life, in her husband's case.

"How do I tell?" says Sherlock.

"What's that?"

"If I'm." Hovering. Overplaying his hand. Doing the wrong thing. "Annoying her."

"You're the clever detective, I'm sure you can figure it out." Mrs Hudson begins arranging their food onto plates. "And if all else fails, you can always ask her. She's used to your little ways by now."

"Perhaps." He remembers Joanna hurling an empty cocaine vial at his head. He remembers standing unseen in the door of her bedroom as she methodically cleaned her gun, then pointed it at her own face. "It doesn't entirely follow that I am accustomed to hers."

Mrs Hudson looks over her shoulder at him, frowning. "What are you on about?"

"Nothing." Ridiculous. He doesn't know why he thought he could talk to Mrs Hudson about this. 

"You haven't had a falling out, have you?" 

"No."

"Hmm." She puts the plate, and the teapot, on a tray, and covers the food with a cloth. "It doesn't matter how well you know a person, dear. They'll always find ways to surprise you."

"That has rarely been my experience."

"You'd experience it more often if you let more people get to know you," she says tartly. "Not even you can know everything that's important about someone just by looking at them."

Sherlock lifts his tea cup to his mouth and peers at her over the rim. "Is your sister staying in Norfolk for long?"

"None of that, young man." She points at finger at him. "I've known you much too long to be impressed."

"Or surprised?" Sherlock smirks.

Mrs Hudson smiles. "Oh, I wouldn't say that, Sherlock. You do surprise me, from time to time." She picks up the tray and pushes it into his hands. "Particularly since you met Joanna."

Sherlock feels the smirk melt from his lips. He stares at Mrs Hudson, a new and surprising source of data.

"Come back down about one," says Mrs Hudson, planting a firm hand between his shoulder blades and pushing him toward the door. "I'll have scones."

Sherlock hears the door of Mrs Hudson's flat close behind him. A second later, through the wood, he hears her laugh. Sherlock frowns down at the tray. If she's in that sort of mood, further interrogation will be fruitless. He'll have to wait.

He starts up the stairs. On the third step, he hears a crash of breaking porcelain from the flat above. He takes the other fourteen steps two at a time, and shoves his way through their door.


	2. Chapter 2

2.

Joanna stands by the sink, cursing quietly. She's prodding the shards of what were once a mug and a plate with the toe of her bare foot. 

Sherlock puts Mrs Hudson's tray down on the worktop and strides forward. "Stop," he orders, kneeling. He swats her foot away from the jagged pile of broken crockery. The backs of his knuckles brush her ankle. He pauses. Arms, shoulders, neck, hair, face, he's slowly grown accustomed to. Ankles are new.

"Sorry," Joanna mutters. "Dunno why I'm so clumsy lately. Here, use this." She hands him a dishcloth.

"Your left arm is in a cast." Sherlock drapes the cloth over his hand and starts piling shards into it.

"I'm functionally ambidextrous. Lots of lefties learn to be, since the world is made for you people."

"You're also under the influence of heavy narcotics."

"That shouldn't make a difference."

"Being stoned often does."

"I am not _stoned_ , you berk."

Something in her tone of voice arrests his attention. Sherlock straightens and looks at her critically. Joanna tenses. Confirmation that there's something worth looking for.

Bags under the eyes. Pronounced lines around her eyes and mouth. Pupils small and focused. Her hair is unbrushed (fine strands gleaming wheat-blonde in the morning light.) There's bruising on both sides of her face: vivid scarlet and plum on the left, where the fracture is located, and a fainter puce on the right, where Sir Timothy Paddington-Gore struck her during their previous case. 

Joanna dislikes narcotics. Joanna hides pain. Deduction: "You've been flushing your pain medication."

Joanna squares her shoulders. Defensiveness. Medical training and common sense operating in opposition to a deep-seated emotional need to be in control. She is inured to her own suffering (he is not.)

"You're being an idiot," Sherlock informs her. He's surprised at how his voice sounds, lower and rougher than normal.

"Ta."

"Pain creates stress in the body, which slows healing time." 

A line appears between her eyebrows. For a moment, Sherlock wonders if she's actually going to argue with him about the benefits of fast recovery. Irritating. Saddening? (Insufficiently descriptive.)

Joanna exhales loudly and slumps, bracing her right hand against the worktop. Sherlock looks down, suddenly and inexplicably uncomfortable. He carries the broken porcelain to the bin, where he chucks it in, cloth and all.

"So, where were you?" Joanna asks. He turns back to her just as she reaches for the kettle. "Heard you leave. Thought maybe you'd got a new case."

"Of course not," says Sherlock immediately. "I was downstairs. Mrs Hudson made breakfast." Sherlock pushes the tray towards her. "And tea."

"Did she?" Joanna glances over, then empties the kettle and puts it back on the coil. "Bless her cotton socks."

Sherlock frowns. "Mrs Hudson always wears stockings."

Joanna giggles, shaking her head. His frown deepens. Is he unusually funny this morning?

"I'm not taking cases," he tells her, as she clears a small space on the crowded table and takes a plate from the tray. "Not at present." It feels important to make this clear. The insinuation that he would have left Joanna in her present condition for a case displeases him. It would take a truly extraordinary case to capture his attention just now, the sort of case he's only encountered once or twice in his entire career.

"Oh? Why's that?" 

She delights in forcing him to elaborate the obvious. "You were released from hospital on the understanding that I would be on hand to monitor you."

Joanna rolls her eyes and shovels a forkful of eggs into her mouth. "Fractures," she tells him, around the eggs, "don't need to be monitored." She swallows. "Seriously, Sherlock, I'm fine. I'm temporarily impaired, not completely disabled. You can take cases. If I need anything, I'll ask Mrs Hudson, or call Greg or something."

The mention of Lestrade in this context puts Sherlock's back up. Literally. He feels his spine straighten, as though she'd run a current through it. "That won't be necessary," he says, in a clipped tone. "I've a statistical analysis of soil sample patterns to complete, and the website needs maintenance."

"Really. You're going to turn down cases because you need to catch up on paperwork. Really?"

He nearly corrects her before he recognizes the idiom. "We've had three back to back cases. You know how things pile up." 

Joanna arches a skeptical eyebrow and doesn't laugh at his (finally, intentional) joke. Apparently his sense of humor is, like most everything else about him, skewed from the statistical mean.

"You should eat," she says. "And you should get the marmalade for me, please."

Sherlock opens the refrigerator and retrieves the marmalade from the shelf strictly dedicated to food (it bears a placard to this effect in Joanna's hand, like the cupboard next to the sink.) As he shuts the door, an idea strikes him. He deposits the marmalade at Joanna's elbow and strides out of the kitchen.

When he returns two minutes later, he has a book in hand. He places it on the table, across from Joanna, and pours himself a cup of tea from Mrs Hudson's pot.

"Oh, I forgot. Pour me one too?" says Joanna, on cue.

Sherlock pauses fractionally, then takes a second mug from the dish rack. Joanna takes her tea black, but even if she were watching him (she isn't) she knows that Sherlock prefers milk and sugar.

Using the back of the sugar spoon, Sherlock crushes two tablets into powder. (Hydrocodone, 20 milligrams total--too much? It's her own fault she hasn't built up more of a tolerance by now.) He stirs the powder into the tea until it's completely dissolved, then carries the mugs and one piece of plain toast to the table. 

"Thank you." She takes the tea and drinks deeply. Dehydrated. Too sore to move about easily, reluctant to ask Sherlock to fetch drinks for her when they aren't in the same room. She'll be sure to finish the cup. (He'll need to work in the sitting room more often.)

Sherlock opens his book, and Joanna eats. When Joanna finishes eating, Sherlock closes his book, takes her plate to the sink, and refills her tea. Then he walks into the sitting room and positions himself at the desk, before his laptop. 

A few seconds later, Joanna walks through the sitting room, and disappears down the corridor. The shower starts up. 

Sherlock grits his teeth, caught in a moment of indecision. Then he stands, carries his laptop through the sitting room, and sits in the corridor, the better to hear over the pulse of the water. Showering: these days, for Joanna, it's a prospect even more fraught with peril than dressing herself. She can't get the cast wet, so she wraps it with a bin liner and balances herself on the slippery porcelain with her arm out of the spray, while performing ablutions with one hand. 

He hates sitting here when he should be _helping_. Perhaps she would let him, if he offered to keep his eyes shut? Although looking probably isn't as much of an issue as touching, in this case. Intriguing prospect. (Distracting.) 

When the shower shuts off and the bathroom door opens again, he stands up and carries his laptop back to into the sitting room. Twenty minutes since the tea. Minimum absorption time for the drug. She'll be struggling into her trousers again in a moment. He hopes she sits down to do it.

Eventually, Joanna re-emerges. Sherlock glances up. Her hair's damp, and she's wearing the same clothes she slept in. 

She's also weaving slightly. Even across the room he can see that her eyes are darker, pupils blown. Sherlock checks his watch. Twenty-five minutes. Normal reaction time. And she's obviously worked it out.

"You spiked my damn tea," she says slowly.

He is unable to repress a quick smile. "A simple deduction, even for you, Joanna. But I give you credit for it, under the circumstances."

"Stop. Smiling. I am going to kill you." Joanna reaches for the wall, to brace herself. " _Christ_ , Sherlock. How much did you give me?"

Sherlock blinks, suddenly uncertain. She looks ashen, where she isn't parti-colored. "Twenty milligrams."

"You _what_?"

"Too much?" She really is rather unsteady on her feet for someone not standing on the deck of a boat.

"God." She takes a deep breath and shudders. "God. Going to be sick."

Hugging the wall, she stumbles back toward the toilet. Sherlock blinks her afterimage away. The last time Joanna had stomach flu, blood vessels around her eyes had burst. The pressure of vomiting will be agonizing with a facial fracture. Suddenly, Sherlock feels like he might need the toilet next.

When the sound of retching stops, and the toilet flushes, he walks into the bathroom.

Joanna's sitting with her back against the side of the tub. Her knees are up, and her head is propped in her right hand. Sherlock stops in the doorway and looks down. She doesn't look up.

"All right?" he says tentatively. "I'm sorry. I miscalculated the dosage."

She scrubs a hand over her face. Wiping away tears. She looks horrible.

"Not all of us are six feet tall. Not to mention your heroic tolerance for narcotics. You pillock." She scowls. "That was _not on_ , Sherlock. You don't get to make decisions about my medication, you are not my doctor."

"No," says Sherlock, suddenly, irrationally, and fiercely angry. "You're mine."

Her eyes widen. 

Stiffly, Sherlock steps into the small room and sits on the toilet lid. 

After a moment, he says, "I imagine a dose of five to ten milligrams would be more appropriate to your body mass."

"I am not confirming that if it's just going to make you more confident about drugging me in future."

"I would far rather you simply took them yourself. Having to deduce your needs, it's--exhausting." Sherlock blinks at the floor. He hadn't meant to say that. It wasn't true. Was it?

When he risks another look at Joanna, her cross expression has softened slightly. 

"Mrs Hudson says I hover," he tells her.

Joanna laughs, as though surprised. "Did you start deducing at her until she shut up?"

He frowns. "No." He'd done that later, for entirely different reasons.

Joanna grows quiet, but she's still smiling. "I don't entirely mind the hovering," she says. "It's nice to know you care. But if you drug me again, I will go through the notes on your latest experiment and substitute digits at random in every single of your findings."

Sherlock's head jerks up. He gapes at her. "You wouldn't."

"For an indefinite period. You'll never know if you can rely on your numbers again."

" _Joanna!_ "

"Hey, you're the one who told me I needed to make my threats more creative."

When had--oh. Yes. The first night of the Cubitt case. He's deleted as much of that case as possible, but he remembers being furious, crowding Joanna against a wall, and then finding himself so distracted by the entirely new sensation of _nearness_ that he'd forgotten to be angry anymore. She does that him continually. Induces altered states of consciousness. Not unlike a drug in herself.

"I don't like it," he says.

"Then don't drug my tea, and you'll be fine."

"No, I--don't like that you try to hide your pain. From me. I understand about other people, they're idiots, but I'm different."

"Oh." Joanna shifts uncomfortably against the hard porcelain. "It really bothers you, that I don't take the tablets?"

Insufficient, but perhaps that's simply shorthand for-- "Yes."

Joanna takes a deep breath. "My father. Sometimes he got me drunk. When I was a kid. So I wouldn't--feel it as much."

Oh.

_Oh._

Nauseated, Sherlock stares at the wall.

"Sherlock. Hey." Joanna touches his knee. "Look at me. It's okay. I wasn't--I didn't mean to compare you to him. It's not the same thing at all. I know that. I was just trying to explain why I don't like taking stuff that--reduces me. Particularly when I'm already. You know." She gestures to her face, grimacing.

"I didn't know." He should have known. "I should have seen."

"I don't actually mind that the idea wouldn't occur to you. If you thought exactly like him, you'd be him. I like it better that you're you."

Sherlock rests his forehead against his hands, which are fists. "Chemical impairment has a detrimental effect on your grammar and syntax."

"Whose fault it is that I'm impaired?"

"Yours. If you'd chosen your own dosage, you wouldn't be in this state."

Joanna sighs, a profound exhalation of air, followed by giggling. "You're incorrigible."

"Yes." He'd learned that word early in life. It had been a favorite of his mother's.

"My back's gone stiff. Can you help me up?" 

Mutely, Sherlock does as she's bid. He tugs her gently to her feet. A little more force, and she would fall into him. He wonders if the drugs have made her sleepy, and if it would seem strange if he claimed to be sleepy as well.

Just then, there's a knock at the door. Not the exterior door, the door to their flat. The bell hasn't rung, ergo it's Mrs Hudson, or else Lestrade, who knows to let himself in by now. He hopes it isn't Lestrade. They haven't seen him since the night Windibank was arrested, and Sherlock doesn't want him fussing (hovering?) over Joanna in her present, potentially susceptible state.

"Shit," says Joanna. She runs a hand over her damp hair. "I've been wearing these clothes for three days. If it's for me, tell them I'll be out in a minute." She pats his arm--strange, what has he done to warrant that?--and pads softly toward the bedroom. 

Sherlock waits until the door is shut behind her to admit their visitor. It's Mrs Hudson.

"Sherlock." She frowns up at him. "Have you got a moment?"

"What for?" It's been a very long time since she dithered on his doorstep like this. As their landlady, she normally feels entitled to barge in with barely a knock as warning.

Mrs Hudson purses her lips in a small frown. Then, hesitantly, she takes an envelope from the pocket of her dress.

"I've just been through yesterday's post," she says, in a soft voice, as though she's breaking bad news. "There was a letter, asking after you."

Sherlock arches an eyebrow. "Unusual." His address is on the website, but he hadn't thought Mrs Hudson had warranted a mention in any of the newspaper articles about his cases. Although she does leave comments on Joanna's blog. Not hard to deduce her identity from that, considering the level of unhealthy obsession displayed by some of Joanna's readers. 

"Not exactly," she says. "It's from--well. It's from Victor."

Sherlock blinks. "Oh," he says. 

"I'll just leave it with you, dear." When Sherlock continues to blink at her, she takes him by the wrist and puts the letter into his hand. His fingers close over it automatically. "It's your business, what you want him to know. His address is on the envelope, and he put his phone number and email and all those things in."

He opens his mouth. Then he clears his throat. "Thank you."

She nods, and glances over his shoulder. Looking for Joanna, clearly, wondering what she knows and what, if anything, Sherlock will tell her.

"I'm just downstairs," she tells him softly. "If you want to talk about anything."

He watches her leave. Mute, frozen.

His hand tightens, and the letter crumples.


	3. Chapter 3

3.

When Joanna emerges from the bedroom a few minutes later, Sherlock is sitting in the armchair with his violin across his lap. Having it near has always been a comfort. He declines to make an analysis of the fact that he suddenly desires comfort. It is certainly irrational, and will go away faster for being ignored.

"Who was at the door, then?" Joanna picks up her laptop and sits across from him, balancing the computer on her knees.

"Just Mrs Hudson with a piece of misdirected mail." The lie (it feels like one even though it's technically true) is automatic and necessary. He needs to be alone with this before he speaks of it. If he ever speaks of it. He hasn't made up his mind about that yet.

"Oh. Well, I suppose I needed to get dressed anyway." She glances up. "Is that the letter? Um. Did it make you angry?"

Sherlock pauses, then looks down at his hand, still clenched around the envelope. "I haven't read it yet."

"Right." Joanna frowns at him for a second, then seems to shrug mentally and goes back to her reading.

He smoothes the envelope against his knee and holds it up for a detached examination. London postmark. Victor is home again, then, and for good this time, just look at the stationery (corners of the envelope still knife-sharp after traveling through the post.) Victor is home. Sherlock's chest feels oddly tight. Home, and asking about him. Why would he want to see Sherlock after more than fifteen years? More to the point, why would Sherlock agree?

Victor Trevor: born 1977 in Norfolk. Educated at Uppington and Queen's College, Cambridge. Boxer, debater, dog owner. The only person apart from Joanna Sherlock has ever introduced to anyone as a friend. ( _Mycroft this is my friend Victor, Victor, my fat stupid brother Mycroft / Don't mind him, Mr Holmes, he's just out of fags._ ) The only person apart from Joanna Sherlock has ever successfully cohabited with (neither his parents nor Mycroft qualify as a success.) 

Curious. In fifteen years, all attempted deletions of information associated with Victor Trevor have failed. Significance? 

He knows what people think of him. In most cases, he knows because he's made sure they think exactly what he wants them to think. Freak is a value-neutral term in his lexicon. You might as well say _extraordinary_ , it applies to both saints and serial killers. He's a statistical outlier, the extreme right of the bell curve. His anti-social tendencies have been pronounced from an early age. _She awoke to the knowledge that today would be a day in which she was cut off from the fellowship of humanity. _How has he not deleted that? Never mind, it's gone now. He doesn't have friends. He has allies, people who have earned his loyalty, one way or another. And he has Joanna.__

Before Joanna, he had Victor.

_God, I'm so sorry. Here, Archie, down! Are you all right? / Shelter dog? / Yes, I've had him a week, how did you know? / I seem to be bleeding. / Oh. Here use this, I'll call for help. / No, no ambulance, I-- / All right, keep your hair on, I'll bring my car round._

He'd told them at A&E he'd been bitten by a stray, to save Victor's dog being impounded and destroyed. Victor had taken it as an overture of friendship, when it hadn't been anything of the kind. Sherlock likes dogs. Eventually, he'd realized he liked Victor too. Odd. His acquaintance with Joanna also began in violence. From dog bites to bullet holes. The only substantive difference between being 19 and being 35. Apart from cocaine, and his hair. He'd worn it shorter back then.

If Victor wishes to meet, Sherlock knows he will meet him. Realistically, he's too curious to do anything else (curiosity is all he's prepared to admit to at the moment.) His anxiety is irrational, so he will ignore it. Sherlock imagines telling Joanna, _I'm off to meet a friend._ Her look of astonishment is gratifying even in the abstract. 

Victor is home for good. If he hasn't turned boring, perhaps they'll meet regularly, like Joanna going to the pub with her old army mates. Sherlock wonders what it would feel like to have two friends at once. Overwhelming? 

He tugs Victor's letter from its envelope. Then he stops, glancing at Joanna. Her powers of observation are limited, but she can be incredibly penetrating at the most unexpected and inconvenient times. The bedroom then. Sherlock crosses the room, a little disappointed when Joanna doesn't appear to notice. Close the door? No, no point, as clumsy as Joanna's injuries have made her, he'll hear her the moment she gets out of her chair. 

He lowers himself to the bed and reads.

 

 _Dear Martha,_ (Handwriting sprawling and disconnected, not in a hurry but anxious about something.)

 _I hope all is well and that I've still got the right address for you._ (She didn't move to Baker Street until after Victor went abroad. They stayed in touch, even after…after.) _Please forgive the long silence. Work makes me a hard man to reach sometimes and I didn't want you to think I was being a clot and not answering your letters in case they went astray._ (MI6, he could have deduced that even without Mycroft's information, thank you very much.)

 _How's London? It's been awhile since I first raised sails, but I'm home now, and thank God for it._ (Definitely a permanent assignment, or as permanent as anything can be in espionage work.) _I was wondering if you knew anything about what Sherlock's been up to in the last few years._ (Last few years = fewer than fifteen, he knows something about Sherlock's life right after university.) _I'm worried about a friend of mine who might have got herself into a jam, and I thought if anyone could sort him out_ (Him? Revealing. Very anxious, then.) _it would be Sherlock Holmes--assuming nothing's happened to that lovely big brain of his._ (Oh God, he knows everything. Mycroft, you bastard.)

 _If you know how to get in touch with Sherlock, will you tell him I'd like to see him?_ (Interesting, why ask Mrs Hudson and not Mycroft?) _He was a good friend and if nothing else I'd like to know if he's all right or if he needs anything._ (Hmm.) _I owe him a lot, as you know._ (Irrational, untrue, embarrassing.) _I'll come round to call some time, if I may, as I'd like very much to see you again._

_Fond regards,_

_Victor Trevor_

 

Under the signature is an email address, a mobile number. No address. Sherlock's fingers twitch on the envelope.

His laptop is in the sitting room.

*  
 _  
sent 09:35  
to: (victor.trevor@gmail.com)  
from: (scienceofdeduction@scienceofdeduction.com)_

_Angelo's, Northumberland Street, noon.  
SH_

_received 09:42  
from: Victor Trevor (victor.trevor@gmail.com)  
to: Sherlock Holmes (scienceofdeduction@scienceofdeduction.com)_

_See you there.  
Vic_

*

At 11:30, Sherlock shuts the lid of his laptop.

"I'm going out," he tells Joanna. "Appointment."

"Oh?" Joanna looks up, interested. "Case?"

Is it a case? Better to treat it like one until he has more data. "Perhaps."

"Do you want me to come?"

"No." He nearly blurts the word. He feels heat creeping up his neck. Not good.

"I'm not going to break, Sherlock." Joanna looks annoyed, rather than offended. That's good. She's used to being annoyed by him, it's not the same as hurting her feelings.

"It isn't that," he tells her. "He wants to meet me alone." _He's a friend, a friend._ Why can't he just say it?

"Oh. Well then." Joanna turns the page of her newspaper. "Don't get into any trouble without me."

Sherlock shrugs into his coat, regarding her. They've got food in, tea, milk. None of her medications need to be refilled (because she isn't taking them.) Nothing she needs that he can think of, and yet--

"Lestrade is in Leeds," he says. Lestrade's nowhere of the sort but Sherlock doesn't want to come home in two hours and find him here. "You'll have to text me if you need anything." 

"Sure, yeah."

_I'm going to meet a friend. He was my best friend, once. You didn't know I ever had one, apart from you, but I did. Until I ruined everything (no don't tell her that.)_

"I'll be back this afternoon," he says.

"All right. Have fun."

Joanna smiles at him. Sherlock blinks, then smiles back. Since Windibank's arrest, they haven't been parted. Is he supposed to kiss her goodbye? At some point they will have to negotiate terms. The uncertainty is maddening.

"Something wrong?" she says, cocking an eyebrow.

"No." He feels the sudden, pressing need to locate his scarf. Which is in another room. "See you later."

"Bye." 

He's aware that she watches him as he leaves the room, and that she does so while looking amused. Better than suspicious, he supposes. 

He gives Mrs Hudson's door a wide berth as he leaves.

*

Sherlock reaches Northumberland Street at 11:40. He enters the office building on the corner of the street facing Angelo's and picks the lock of a disused suite on the second floor, where there are good, wide windows with an excellent view of the busy intersection below. Even if Victor has grown a beard, gained or lost weight or muscle mass, Sherlock is confident that he'll be able to pick him out of the crowd (Mycroft has been trying to recruit him into the service since he was 21, because he's _better_ than they are.) 

Perhaps this is why he hadn't told Joanna he was meeting a friend. She might have wanted to come along (panic, _why_ does that thought make him want to panic) and he suspects she would have something to say about the fact that he's getting his first glimpse of Victor via remote surveillance. Possibly not good, but he requires data. He's stopped expecting ordinary people to understand that.

Sherlock positions himself at an angle to the window. He can't afford to loom, service training isn't as hopeless as that. There's a cab, pulling up to the corner. Sherlock narrows his eyes (is he squinting, surely not, he's much too young for glasses.)

"Do you always surveil the area when you're meeting old friends?" 

A voice behind him, as unexpected as a bullet through the glass. Sherlock pivots to face it. There's a man leaning into the doorway. Five-ten, 140 pounds, mid-thirties. Dark hair shot with grey. Jeans, cardigan, less than a week off the rack. Thoroughly unobtrusive. He's grinning. Sherlock never heard a whisper of his approach. Had he followed Sherlock, or--no, stupid. He'd anticipated him.

Sherlock's lips quirk into something not unlike a smile.

"I wouldn't know," he says, feeling that the proper reward for cleverness is honesty. "The circumstances of our meeting are unprecedented, in my experience."

Victor laughs. Then he strides forward, and the next thing Sherlock knows, he is being hugged. He tenses automatically at the unexpected contact, but he finds himself returning the pressure briefly, before Victor releases him. Foolish to have been taken off guard by a hug. Victor did (does) things like that. (Why doesn't Joanna hug him more?)

"Surprised to hear from me?" Now that Victor is closer, Sherlock registers the change in his haircut (short in back, longer at the temples) the new lines around his mouth and eyes (still a smoker) and the scar that runs from under his hairline and across his left eyebrow (knife, serrated edge, 4 inch folding blade.)

"I wasn't anticipating it," Sherlock admits. His voice sounds strange, softer and higher pitched than normal.

Victor looks slightly smug. "That's one for the history books, then. Not many people ever surprised you."

"No." It's a list he's never needed all the fingers of one hand to count, until now.

Victor takes a step back and looks at him for a moment. His smile is weary, but it's warm, and it doesn't pretend that it's not hiding anything. As such, Sherlock trusts it.

"Let's go eat, then," says Victor. "You do still eat occasionally, I hope."

Sherlock smiles. "Occasionally."

"Fantastic. I love Italian. Proper Italian, not that muck you get in Italy."

"Angelo will be delighted to hear it."

*

Sherlock walks a step behind Victor as they make their way to the restaurant. There's a new confidence in his gait, completely different from the loping slouch he'd affected as a student. His gaze sweeps the street around them, without drawing notice to itself. When they're inside the restaurant and seated, Sherlock watches silently as Victor looks over the menu. 

"I looked up your website after I got your email," he says, finger hovering over the listing for chicken carbonara.

"Oh?" _Left thumb, Sherlock, seriously?_

"Yup, read the article on tobacco ash." Victor shakes his head. "It was like having you in the room again, I could actually _hear_ you saying all that stuff. Made me bloody homesick."

Sherlock blinks and looks away. He thinks he might be blushing.

Victor folds the menu. His fingers curl around the stem of his wine glass. "I'm sorry I haven't been in touch."

Sherlock shakes his head, just a twitch. He'd walked out on his studies at the beginning of his third year, leaving Victor to cope with his father's death alone in their flat. Cocaine has obliterated most of his memory of several years that followed, but not the lingering heat signature of shame (unprecedented.)

"At first I just wanted to put it all behind me, you know." Victor taps the rim of the glass with his fingernail. "And after I was done with Cambridge, I--fell into a peripatetic line of work."

"So you said in your letter to Mrs Hudson." Sherlock shrugs. "Covert operatives are not known for having fixed addresses."

Victor startles. Sherlock looks at his wide, blinking eyes, and suddenly he understands what Victor had meant about homesickness. 

"Christ," Victor breathes out. "I'd forgotten what that felt like. You haven't lost your touch at all." 

"No," Sherlock agrees.

His eyes crinkle at the corners, like he's about to laugh. Then he sobers. "We're grown ups now, Sherlock. Knowing is one thing, but it isn't always…safe to say what you know, if you understand me."

"I am perfectly discreet."

"You always were. Except when you weren't."

Sherlock is able to hide the wince by looking over at Billy, who is approaching to take their orders. He listens to Victor ask for the chicken carbonara, orders the same for himself (he'll take it home to Joanna, it's her favorite) and sips his wine.

When they're alone again, he says, "I'm clean now." 

Victor doesn't smile, or do that hearty _good on you, mate, _thing that Lestrade had done when he first returned to Scotland Yard with the results of his tox screens in hand. But there is no missing the fact that he looks pleased.__

"I'm glad to hear it," he says. "I worried a bit. Seemed to me you'd get your name in the papers one day. When the years went by and I didn't hear anything of you, I did--wonder." He looks faintly embarrassed.

"I keep my name out of the papers, when I can." Sherlock sniffs. "Publicity interferes with the work."

"I quite understand." Victor laughs and shakes his head. "God. It's good to see you. I tell everyone about you, you know. My brilliant flatmate in uni who could tell you your life story just by looking at you."

Sherlock looks hard at Victor. Takes a breath. 

"Not your junkie flatmate who got your father killed?" he says.

The silence that follows lasts a long time, and it's all Sherlock can do not to jump up from the table and rush from the restaurant, disappear into the crowds on the pavement. It was probably the wrong thing to say. But he had to say it. He has to know. It's too hard, sitting here wondering if Victor's pleasure in seeing him is a put-on, to soften him up for something he wants.

"That isn't what happened," Victor says finally.

"I was there, I know perfectly well what happened."

"He had a stroke, Sherlock."

"He was being blackmailed. It was perfectly obvious, and I did nothing. I didn't care." His first case as an adult, his first failure that couldn't be blamed on someone else.

Victor points at him over the table with a breadstick "When I phoned you after he died, you stole the senior tutor's Lexus and drove straight to Norfolk." He bites the end of the breadstick off. "Fine way to show you don't give a damn."

"I didn't give a damn about the senior tutor."

"Sherlock."

Sherlock looks out the window. Neither of them speak again until Billy arrives with their food. Victor immediately shoves a forkful of pasta into his mouth and chews it for a long time before swallowing.

"Is that what you've been thinking this whole time?" Victor says. "That I never called all these years because I blamed you for what happened?"

He hadn't thought. He'd made sure he stayed high enough to avoid thinking about anything he didn't want to. By the time he emerged from his first stint in rehab, enough time had passed that he was nearly able to forget there was anything he wanted to forget. (Nearly: see above re failed deletions.)

"You," says Victor, taking his silence for confirmation, "are an idiot."

Sherlock frowns. "No I'm not." What is it about people who call themselves his friends that makes them say that? It's a bit backwards, surely.

"I heard you finally caught up to Hudson a few years ago," says Victor. "Martha wrote to me."

"Did she."

"I would have called you then, but I was in the middle of something delicate. Deep cover assignment, lasted four years. By the time it was over, you'd changed numbers."

"I've moved around a bit."

"Settled down now, though, haven't you?" Victor grins. "Tell me about Joanna, then."

"What?" Joanna, how does he know about--oh God, of course.

"I found her blog," says Victor, and Sherlock nearly groans. "You could have knocked me over with a whisper. You, living with a woman? Never thought I'd see the day. Or the girl. Let's have it. How long have you two been together?"

 _We're not,_ Sherlock begins to say, out of habit. But that's not right anymore, is it? She said, _I love you_. And they are _together_ , far more often than they're not. "She was just my flatmate. My--friend."

"Was?" Victor arches an eyebrow. "So it's different now?"

What if he says the wrong thing? What if Joanna finds out, and gets angry, and changes her mind about--whatever it is she's made up her mind about? "It might be."

"I'd think you'd know, wouldn't you?" 

He means sex, of course. Are they or aren't they having it, that's the line in the sand, apparently. If they aren't, does that negate the significance of an _I love you_? "You would think that," Sherlock says.

Victor lets this pass. "What's she like?"

Brave. Strong. Accepting. Extraordinary. "Not an idiot."

Victor laughs. "High praise, from you."

"Yes." Nearly the highest praise he knows how to give, and still, somehow, not enough. Time to change the subject. "What about you and your...friend?"

"Who do you mean?" Just a nanosecond of hesitation, and something shuttered in his eyes. He knows precisely what Sherlock's referring to.

"Your letter. You told Mrs Hudson you had a friend who'd got herself 'into a jam' and you hoped I might help."

"Oh." Victor looks uncomfortable, and it's both partly a ruse and partly genuine. Complex. Certainly more interesting than it sounded in print. "That's--well, it's nothing, now. It's been dealt with." 

_Dealt with._ Something rather grim and professional in his tone. Sherlock wonders, suddenly, how many people Victor has killed in the course of his work.

"Dealt with by whom?" he asks. "By you, I take it?"

"Can't discuss it, I'm afraid."

"I'll need the details."

"There's no need, really. When I wrote the letter, I _was_ thinking about bringing you in, but it would have been hellishly irregular and I wouldn't have considered it unless I was desperate. But as I said, it's sorted now."

"You said him."

"Sorry?" Slight tensing, not in the face, but in the hands. Most of Victor's tells have migrated there over the years, it seems. Clever. Nobody looks at the hands (except for Sherlock, obviously.)

"In your letter, you said you thought I might be able to sort _him_ out. Him, not her or it. A mistake, obviously, but a revealing one."

Victor opens his mouth, then shakes his head. "I'm telling you, it was a professional matter. I made it sound like that because it seemed like the right story to tell Mrs Hudson. I was hardly going to put into writing that I wanted your help tracking a North Korean operative through satellite networks across the Eastern bloc." Victor pauses. "That's a purely hypothetical potential scenario, of course."

"I see." Sherlock nods. "The tip of your left ear still turns red when you lie. Why only the left, I wonder? Do you have some sort of vascular obstruction?"

To his surprise, Victor merely grins. "There's a much easier way to tell when a spy is lying to you, you know. You just look and see whether his mouth's open."

Sherlock rolls his eyes. 

He doesn't speak much for the rest of the meal. Victor, accustomed to his silences, doesn't take it as an insult. He fills the gaps by telling Sherlock stories of his work abroad, mostly obvious fabrications with one or two intriguing nuggets of fact to root them. Sherlock is surprised to realize that he's enjoying himself, that he doesn't mind simply listening for once. Less than half of his brain wanders off along divergent pathways as Victor talks. Being here with him, it feels…good. Settling, in some indefinable way. As though Victor's presence makes him easier in his own skin. Is this why people have friends? Joanna exerts some of the same steadying influence, when she isn't racking him with indecision and uncertainty. 

The meal ends, and they walk out to the pavement together. Before they part ways, Victor claps his shoulder, and it feels like a hug contained in the palm of a hand. 

"It was damned good to see you again, Sherlock." Delivered as a statement of fact, underscored by a depth of real feeling.

"Yes," says Sherlock. "I…yes." What should he say? _I'm glad you're alive. Thank you for not hating me._

Victor seems to read something of this in his face, because his grip tightens. "Things are a bit mad at the moment, but we need to do this again soon. I'll be in touch when I can. And bring Joanna, next time."

Next time. A promise of extended association. A brand new use for the plural of _friend._

"Perhaps," he says, meaning _yes._

He watches Victor get into a cab, then starts back toward Baker Street. He walks faster than normal, eager to be home. He wants to tell Joanna about Victor. He's not sure why, but he thinks the warm feeling in his chest might be best described as pride.

 _I didn't ruin everything after all._ Sentiment. But strangely not unwelcome, for all that.


	4. Chapter 4

There are voices coming from the flat, audible from the moment he opens the front door of 221. Joanna's speech, the cadence and measure of her inflections, he would recognize at an even greater distance. But it's not until he's climbed two steps that he identifies the second speaker as Lestrade. 

_Damn_ , he thinks immediately. Joanna will have discovered that Sherlock lied to her, then. 

More worrying: if she called Lestrade, despite thinking he was working in Leeds, then Sherlock's clearly underestimated the depth of her attachment to him. 

_Damn, damn, damn._

But perhaps she didn't call him? Perhaps Lestrade has a case. Sherlock had told him he wasn't taking any cases, but maybe Lestrade's uncovered something interesting enough that he thinks Sherlock will be tempted to go back on his word. Despite himself, Sherlock feels a flicker of interest. He hasn't had a properly baffling problem to solve in ages. Both the Elsie Cubitt and Mary Sutherland cases had seemed intriguing at the outset, but the brainwork needed to unravel them had been disappointingly minimal. 

For the moment, Sherlock wants nothing to do with any more cases that end in mayhem and brute force and gross bodily harm. At least, not until he can look at Joanna without wincing. Something really abstruse, though, something he can apply his mind to without leaving the flat--that might be just the thing.

Sherlock springs up the last few steps and throws the door open. Joanna and Lestrade are sitting on the couch. Side by side, their shoulders touching. Lestrade is smiling broadly, and Joanna looks quietly pleased. They look up at him, and there isn't a trace of guilt on either of their faces, although he thinks there may be a trace of amusement in Lestrade's expression.

"Sherlock, hi." Joanna smiles at him, her hands wrapped around a mug of tea. "You're earlier than I expected."

"Am I?" What did that mean? Had she wanted to be alone with Lestrade?

"How was your appointment? Did it turn out to be a case after all?"

"No." He looks at Lestrade. "What are you doing here?"

"Now that's the sort of welcome I expect when I come calling at Baker Street," says Lestrade easily, leaning back against the cushions. His arm trails over the back of the sofa; a few inches lower, and he'll have his arm around Joanna's shoulders. "Jo here had me confused, what with the tea, and being friendly and polite. But now you're here, I feel right at home again."

"Don't be more tiresome than you can help, Lestrade." Sherlock shuts the door, not quite slamming it, and advances on the sofa. "You're rarely here for no good reason."

"Oh, so visiting me isn't a good enough reason?" Joanna arches an eyebrow.

"Not when he's in the middle of a working day." Sherlock looks at Lestrade. "I told you I was too busy for cases at the moment."

"So you did," says Lestrade agreeably.

Sherlock stares at him. Lestrade stares back, blinking occasionally, seemingly unperturbed. Joanna looks between the two of them, then makes a snorting noise that expresses something in between amusement and disgust. Finally, she stands up.

"Time for my medication," she says. "I'll just leave you two here to gaze into each other's eyes."

"Sit down," says Sherlock automatically. "I'll get it."

He spins on his heel and stalks toward the bedroom, returning a moment later with several plastic bottles of tablets, which he dumps on the sofa beside Joanna. There are anti-inflammatories, antibiotics, anxiolytics, and opioids. She hasn't deigned to share her medication schedule with him, so he doesn't know which one she requires at the present moment.

Joanna looks down bemusedly at the small pharmacy. Sherlock walks into the kitchen, and returns a moment later with a glass of water, which he thrusts into her hand. Not until she takes it from him does he realize his error: if he'd let Joanna fetch the medicine herself, he might have steered her into a different seat when she returned.

"Yes," says Joanna to Lestrade, though he's said nothing. "He's been like this the whole time."

Lestrade chuckles. Sherlock huffs, and flings himself down into Joanna's armchair. 

"As it happens, I did have someone call me up about a case in Chislehurst," says Lestrade. "Well, I say me. They were calling for you. But it all got sorted out as soon as the surviving victim regained consciousness."

Sherlock performs a quick mental search of all recent London crimes to have appeared in the newspaper. "The death of Eustace Blackwell?" Home invasion gone wrong, plain as the grey in Lestrade's hair. Someone had wanted to call him in for that? Insulting. "I wouldn't have gone in any case."

"Might not have been up to your usual standards," says Lestrade, with intolerable agreeability. "But DI Hopkins was keen on having you." 

"Oh, a fan is he?" Sherlock can't restrain a snarl. "Lovely. Because the last time you introduced us to one of your admiring colleagues it went so terribly well."

Lestrade's eyes flash. Till now, he has been patient when Sherlock reminded him of Philip Martin. He still feels responsible for Martin's betrayal. But he looks less than patient at the moment. Joanna glances between the pair of them. Her mouth tightens.

"Since the case isn't even on the table, let's not snipe at each other over it, all right?" Joanna hands Sherlock one of her prescription bottles. He stares confusedly for half a second. Stupid. Of course she can't open it herself. He takes it from her and shakes two tablets onto his hand, arching an eyebrow. Joanna nods. The tips of Sherlock's fingers brush her dry palm.

"You're still dehydrated." He ought to have rectified that before he left to see Victor. Distractions are fatal to his concentration.

"Pining for the loss of my lustrous hair and dewy complexion?"

Lestrade coughs. Sherlock scowls.

"What happened to Eustace Blackwell?" says Joanna. She tosses the pills back, and, to Sherlock's gratification, drains the glass of water. "I missed most of last week's headlines, obviously."

"Murdered by a gang of housebreakers who've been hitting the area pretty hard in the last six months," says Lestrade. "Broke their MO--his was the first body they left behind. He surprised them. Doesn't pay to be an insomniac, apparently. His wife woke up in the middle of it."

"And, what, they just let her go?" Joanna arches an eyebrow.

"Yes and no. They bashed her up and left her unconscious. She might have died, if a neighbor hadn't found her pretty early the next morning. She was in a coma two days, took her two more before she remembered anything about the attack."

"Why was Inspector Hopkins thinking of calling Sherlock, if there was an obvious link to other housebreakings in the area?" Joanna doesn't look at Sherlock. He isn't fooled. She's trying to get him interested. She thinks he's bored, or will be soon. Perhaps she wants him out of the flat.

Perhaps she wants it to be Lestrade who opens her medications and brings her water and listens at the bathroom door to make certain she doesn't fall in the shower.

"Just one of those funny things." Lestrade shrugs dismissively. "Three cups of cold tea left on the sideboard in the dining room where the bodies were found. Best we can figure is that they helped themselves to a brew after they knocked the wife out. Probably they realized they'd made enough noise to wake up the neighbors and decided to hang about until there was less chance of anyone twitching at the curtains while they made their escape."

"Seems like they'd have had a hard time clearing out with the stuff, if they were that worried about being seen."

"Mrs Blackwell said nothing was missing apart from the cash in her and her husband's wallets. Television was shifted away from the wall, but they left it--probably when Blackwell walked in on them."

"Fascinating." Sherlock rolls his eyes at the ceiling. "Well, don't let us keep you, Lestrade. Having dealt so efficiently with an open and shut case assigned to your colleague, you'll no doubt have work of your own to be getting on with."

Joanna glares at him. She doesn't tell Lestrade to stay, though. Lestrade sets his tea aside and stands up.

"See you this weekend, Jo?" he says. "I'll pop round if I can."

"Yeah, cheers." Joanna gives Lestrade her hand. He squeezes it briefly, then nods at Sherlock. The door bangs shut behind him.

"Leeds, Sherlock?" says Joanna, when they're alone.

Sherlock sniffs and folds himself up in his armchair. 

Somewhat to his surprise, Joanna doesn't press the issue. She perches her laptop on her knees and directs her attention to the screen.

"So, your meeting," she says, after half a minute (twice the time it would take her to open her email and discover there were no messages of pressing importance.) "Definitely not a case?"

Sherlock hesitates. "Not a case." Joanna will be intrigued by the idea of Victor. Intrigued enough to forget Lestrade? "A friend."

"Friend?" Immediately, Joanna looks up. "When you say friend…"

Sherlock's eyes flicker to the skull on the mantle. "I wasn't being euphemistic."

"Really?" She sets the laptop aside. "How do you know him?"

Anyone else would have disbelieved him. Surprise would have given way to skepticism. _Where does a freak like you make friends?_ Joanna doesn't doubt that he possesses the capacity for human relationships. "We met in university. His dog bit me. He drove me round to the A &E after. I was laid up for a week and he visited me."

"Really?" Joanna is laughing. "What sort of dog was it?"

"Rottweiler." It had a terrier.

"Have you been in touch all this time, or…?" _Why haven't I heard of him before?_ is the unspoken question.

"Not since I discontinued my studies. He left the country after finishing his degree."

"And he's back now?"

"Obviously."

Joanna makes a speculative noise. "His name?"

"Victor Trevor." _Just Vic, all right, the full handle makes me sound like a music hall sensation from the 1890's._

"And you…what, had lunch? Chatted, caught up?"

Sherlock nods stiffly. "It's the established mode in these cases, or so I understand."

"Huh." Joanna blinks at him. "So when do I get to meet him?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the incredible late and short update. Other stories have been hijacking my brain of late, but I thought I might as well post this so as to reassure you that Joanna is not at all forgotten.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again I must apologize for the delay between postings. I would also like to apologize to everyone who has left comments here or on Tumblr asking after the status of the story. I tried to respond from time to time, but I never quite knew what to say.
> 
> I am committed to finishing this story, however long it takes me. But I don't want to make any promises about a timeline that I'll only end up disappointing. I'm enormously grateful to everyone who has continued to be interested in the story and ask after it and send encouragement. I hope this chapter was worth the wait.
> 
> Again, no promises as to when the next chapter will be up, but I will go so far as to say that it's already in progress.
> 
> I've had a few people ask about my plans regarding incorporating series 2 canon into my stories. At this point, I have no plans to do so. I already had a pretty firm idea of the trajectory of my series before series 2 aired. At this point, I'm just hoping to catch up to everything before series 3 airs.

Contrary to popular assumption Sherlock knows that he did not emerge from the womb a ruthless empiricist. The raw materials of superior intellect might be genetically conferred, but true freaks are made, not born. Just look at Mycroft (he does _have_ to, sometimes.) They are brothers, samples of the same phenotype, but because Mycroft was exposed to a different set of variables in his developmental years people frequently mistake him for a normal man. 

Sherlock sometimes thinks that the chief difference between himself and his brother is that he has never _wished _to be taken for anything other than exactly what he is. Socially, this is a handicap. Intellectually, emotionally, (spiritually? no, quite absurd) he thinks his way is more honest, more…honorable, if such a thing as honor exists. (But it does, he knows it does, he has Joanna as living proof.)__

__And yet, he is uncomfortably aware that there is a deficiency in his character. A blind spot, if you will. The majority of human beings--not merely the idiots--have something in common that he lacks. (He isn't alone in lacking it, but he prefers not to dwell on what else he shares with his fellow outsiders.)_ _

__Whatever that common quality may be, it probably accounts for the fact that, even though they know nothing of each other, Victor and Joanna have each expressed a desire to meet the other._ _

__Sherlock cannot possibly account for this blind reciprocal fascination. All that links them is a common connection to Sherlock. Could that be enough? Do all intelligently selected co-members of exclusive population groups eventually grow curious about one another?_ _

__"Do you really want to meet him, then?" Sherlock asks._ _

__Joanna tilts her head and blinks. "Um, let me think. Do I want to meet the only person connected to your past that you've ever willingly interacted with for any reason not connected to a case?" Joanna laughs, a small huff of breath that accompanies a shake of the head. "I'd ask if you're joking, but I know the answer. Yes, Sherlock, I'd like to meet him." She hesitates. "I mean, unless--"_ _

__"Unless what?"_ _

__She shrugs, reaching for her laptop again. Body language: she's busying herself to cover a slight degree of embarrassment. "Well, maybe you don't want him to meet me?"_ _

__Sherlock stares. "You meet everyone I associate with, sooner or later."_ _

__"Yes, because usually the only people you associate with are connected to your work. But I've never…"_ _

__At times like this, Sherlock wishes that Mycroft's people would hurry up and finish developing whatever thought-reading brain-implanted microchip they have in the works, because Joanna is baffling him. She's expressing signs of discomfiture and embarrassment, but either she is reacting to something internal to her own perspective or Sherlock is, yet again, missing something._ _

__He _hates_ missing things._ _

__"Never what?" he prompts._ _

__Joanna fixes her eyes on her laptop screen. She shrugs. "Well, I've never met your family."_ _

__Sherlock's mouth falls open. He can't help it; he's completely unprepared to hear something so nonsensical coming from Joanna's lips. "You see Mycroft regularly," he says, unable to keep a faint accusation from his tone. "You're on repellently familiar terms with him."_ _

__"Yes, but I don't even know…" Joanna shrugs. "Do you have other family? I've heard you mention your mother, but only the once."_ _

__Ah. Family in the general, rather than the specific sense. Sherlock can see the distinction, but perhaps he's been too opaque if Joanna thinks that he's kept them sequestered for their benefit rather than hers._ _

__"I've never met your sister," he points out._ _

__Joanna frowns. Tight lines gather at her mouth and temples. "That's…hardly the same thing."_ _

__"Isn't it?"_ _

__There's a moment of silence. Joanna's eyes widen slightly. Sherlock doesn't look away; even he is aware that to do so would imply an awkwardness around the subject, would hint that Joanna has been somehow insensitive. She hasn't; she couldn't possibly have known (she doesn't see the way that he sees.) But she needs to understand this. He does not wish for her to feel slighted._ _

__Eventually, Joanna looks away and clears her throat. "So are you planning to meet again?"_ _

___Things are a bit mad at the moment. I'll be in touch when I can._ "There was an ambiguous exchange along those lines."_ _

__"Hmm." Joanna peers at him for a moment. She purses her lips and takes a breath, then pauses. She's clearly building up to a speech of some kind. Her speeches are occasionally tedious, but the general subject of their current conversation is one in which he can only acknowledge her to be the superior source of insight._ _

__"I'm going to give you a bit of advice," she says. "You probably don't want it, but I'm giving it all the same."_ _

__Sherlock waits._ _

__"If Victor is actually important to you _at all_ , then don't just wait around for chance to throw him in your path again. If he knows you, then he probably knows you're…you, so he might not take it too much to heart. But still. People like to feel wanted. He got in touch this time, right?"_ _

__Quite indirectly, but… "Yes?"_ _

__"So let it be you next time. Invite him out. I know you don't do the pub night thing, but…I don't know. Bring him here. We'll make dinner for him or something."_ _

__"We?" Surely she isn't suggesting that Sherlock cook. She's far too intelligent._ _

__Joanna rolls her eyes. "I'm sure Mrs Hudson and I can come up with something. I'll even make myself scarce after, if you want." She sets her laptop aside. "Just think it over. I'm going for a walk."_ _

__The abruptness of this announcement sends Sherlock's already puzzled thoughts into a dizzying about-face. "What? Why?" He stands up, unsure whether he means to block her exit or spring out the door to perform whatever errand she requires. "Do you need something?"_ _

__"Yes. Exercise. Fresh air." She bends carefully at the waist, reaching for her jacket, which hangs from the back of her chair. She keeps it close because there are times when she needs it even indoors, despite Sherlock's careful monitoring of the ambient temperature in the flat. "Honestly, Sherlock, there's nothing wrong with my legs. Exercise is a proven aid to recovery. Also, I'm going out of my mind stuck in here all day."_ _

__Sherlock bites down on his automatic protest. His desire to keep her indoors is…not logical. Neither is his fear that some danger will befall her while she takes her walk. It's broad daylight, and she won't have the strength to go far. They are under no particular threat from any nameable source at the moment. Still... "I'll go with you."_ _

__"No." She threads her right arm through the sleeve of her jacket and fastens the top button. It hangs loose on the left side, falling over her sling like a cape. "No offense, Sherlock, but no. I need--space."_ _

__"There is a sufficient amount of space outdoors to render the space I occupy negligible."_ _

__Joanna laughs and starts for the door. Sherlock watches her go, feeling a twinge of the same helpless rage that occasionally built into screaming, breathless tantrums when he was a child._ _

__"Don't take this the wrong way," she says, pausing at the door, "but wherever you happen to be, you sort of…fill the space that's available. I just need to be alone for a bit. I'll be fine. I've got my phone."_ _

__He doesn't mean to communicate anything with his facial expression, but apparently his anxiety betrays him. Joanna's mouth softens. She walks over to him and touches his arm with her good hand. Even through the fabric of his shirt, the warmth of her hand burns him. She stands on tip-toe and drops a light kiss on his cheek._ _

__" _I will be fine_ ," she says. "We've…we've had some bad luck lately, but we're not _cursed._ It's okay to relax our guard a little."_ _

__Sherlock doesn't know what to say, how to argue his feelings without betraying their illogic. So he swallows and gives a jerky nod. He watches Joanna leave and thinks about letting his guard down where she is concerned. The idea is so absurd that he laughs almost against his will._ _

__*_ _

__Mrs Hudson always looks surprised when Sherlock knocks on her door. He doesn't know why. She is virtually the only person to whom he ever pays social visits, and they're quite regular by his standards. Though he supposes twice in one day might be a bit unusual even by his standards._ _

__"If you've come for the scones, they've gone cold, I'm afraid," she says reprovingly. "I did tell you they'd be done at one o'clock."_ _

__Ah. Yes, he'd forgotten that. Luckily, he has the perfect excuse. "Apologies, Mrs Hudson. I was having lunch with Victor."_ _

__Her mouth forms a round silent O of surprise. "Were you now?" she says. He can't quite read her tone; it might be approving. "Well. My goodness."_ _

__She blinks a couple of times, as though overtaken by a fit of reverie. But she shakes it off quickly enough and walks back into her flat. Sherlock follows and sits at the kitchen table._ _

__"No tea?" he says, when she fetches a glass of orange juice from the fridge._ _

__"I didn't sleep terribly well last night," she says, pouring a second glass for herself. "So I'm cutting back on caffeine in the afternoons. The juice will do you good, anyway. I'm sure you need the vitamins."_ _

__In Mrs Hudson's idiosyncratic lexicon, things that will do him good have over the years included everything from dry clothes and hot baths, to regular meals, to a sharp slap across the face followed by an extended stay in a private rehabilitation facility. In her own way she is as ruthless as he has ever been. More so._ _

__"So, you saw Victor? That's very nice. How is he? Does he look different?"_ _

__If this is one of those occasions where banal questions are a cover for a deeper interest, Sherlock cannot tell. He takes her inquiry at face value. "He appeared to be in excellent health. He was very little changed from when I saw him last, apart from increased musculature development consistent with the physical training he undergoes to be fit for his line of work."_ _

__Mrs Hudson stares at Sherlock for a moment, processing this. "And what is his line of work?"_ _

__"If I told you, he'd probably have to kill both of us."_ _

__Sherlock instantly regrets saying it. He…makes an effort not to say things that will be judged inappropriate in front of Mrs Hudson, if only because she isn't above boxing his ears. But to his relief she only laughs and looks intrigued._ _

__"He came to see me," she tells him. "I suppose it was--twelve years ago? It doesn't _seem_ that long ago, but it must have been. He did tell me he was going into the navy." She laughs a bit. "I hoped I'd have the chance to see him looking smart in his uniform, but he was off so quickly afterwards."_ _

__"Yes, he was in the navy, but not for long." Sherlock sniffs. "The palms of his hands no longer bear the appropriate callouses." There had, in fact, been a half-healed friction burn between his thumb and forefinger that even Sherlock could not immediately account for._ _

__"Is he living in London now? His letter said he was home, but I thought perhaps…well, I suppose he might not want to live in Norfolk again. Too many memories, I daresay."_ _

__Her voice wavers slightly over the word _memories,_ and she studies the contents of her glass, avoiding his eyes. Sherlock peers at her frowning._ _

__"It bothers you."_ _

__"I'm sorry?"_ _

__He feels strangely hesitant to say it, almost awkward. He is rarely awkward, even more rarely when he is with Mrs Hudson. "Memories."_ _

__"Oh, no, I wouldn't say so." She denies it quickly. Too quickly. "At my age, dear, I have so _many_ memories, good and bad…some of them do weigh a bit more heavily than others, but it's all part of having lived a life, I'd say." _ _

__To Sherlock's surprise, she reaches out to pat his hand. "And it's all worked out for the best, hasn't it?" she says. "Just look at you."_ _

__"At me? Why, what have I to do with it?"_ _

__Mrs Hudson clucks disapprovingly. "Don't play silly buggers with me, young man. You know full well what I mean. I have my house, and a nice life, and stability. And you have your health, and your work--and Joanna. When I think where we all were just ten years ago, and where we are now--we've all found our little bit of happiness, haven't we?"_ _

__As though her mere utterance had been an irresistible command, Sherlock's inner eye is suddenly flooded by sensory impressions from a decade past. The sensation is startling; he thought he had deleted most of that time. Yet he can see the older/younger Mrs Hudson like a transparent overlay blurring the image of the woman who sits across from him now. Her hair had been grey then; she hadn't yet begun to dye it. She'd walked without a limp, and yet she had seemed smaller, her spine bowed under the weight of an inner burden._ _

__"Am I so different?" he finds himself asking. He does not have the capacity to judge himself as he is able to judge her. He avoided mirrors back then, but he can remember feeling…thin. Stretched out and used up, every particle of his being consumed either by the drugs or the work to which he was only just beginning to apply himself._ _

__Mrs Hudson surprised him by not smiling. She regards him thoughtfully. She seems to be searching for the right words._ _

__"You are very different, I would say." She cocks her head, bird-like. "You're…more at home with yourself. You were always so up in arms about things. Even when you and Victor were lads, I looked at you sometimes and I…I was afraid for you."_ _

__He hasn't the faintest idea what to say, so he drinks his juice. When he puts his glass down he says, "Joanna thinks I should have Victor to the flat. For _dinner._ "_ _

__Mrs Hudson brightens. Sherlock isn't certain whether it's because of her enthusiasm for the idea, or whether she's simply relieved by the change of topic. "What a nice idea."_ _

__"It's a pointless social exercise."_ _

__Under the table, Mrs Hudson gives him an impatient prod, the toe of her shoe nudging his calf. "He _is_ your friend. And Joanna's bound to be curious about him. She's only known you for a year or so, and the way you carry on anyone would think you didn't have friends."_ _

__"I don't." It isn't like Mrs Hudson to miss the glaringly obvious. Not when it comes to him, at least._ _

__She prods his leg again. Harder this time. It's really more like a kick. "Well, and what do you call me, then?"_ _

__"Necessary to my peace of mind," he says, without pausing to consider._ _

__He hadn't intended it as a compliment. It is nothing more than a bare statement of fact. But she gives him a soft look and shakes her head._ _

__"Every time I wonder why I put up with you," she murmurs. She rises from the table. "Finish your juice. I'll warm some scones for you to take back upstairs."_ _

__Sherlock drains the glass obediently and stands with his hands in his pockets, feeling like a schoolboy as he waits for Mrs Hudson to judge that the scones have sat in the oven to warm for an appropriate length of time before piling them on a plate and covering them with a cloth._ _

__"Here you are," she says. "I want my breakfast dishes back before the morning now, Sherlock, do you understand?"_ _

__Sherlock sniffs. "You have other dishes."_ _

__"And you have a perfectly good kitchen of your own in which to wash them up."_ _

__*_ _

__It is 5:00 pm. Sherlock has been in the flat alone for twenty-three minutes. Mrs Hudson's dishes remain on the sideboard, no cleaner than they were after breakfast. He hasn't spared a thought for them. His attention is fully engaged by the fact that an hour and thirteen minutes have passed since Joanna left for her walk and she has yet to return._ _

__It's nothing to be concerned about. It signifies nothing. Except for the fact that she's clearly over-extending herself, just as he knew she would if left unsupervised. Had he gone with her, he would have insisted on returning home after half an hour, with rest-stops at intervals if she showed signs of fatigue. Alone, he is only too aware that she will ignore her limits, as she ignores pain, thirst, and hunger._ _

__Sherlock feels cheated. Joanna so often accuses him of neglecting his own needs that he would enjoy the opportunity to turn the accusation back on her. No doubt that is why she insisted on going out alone--to deprive him of his chance to get his own back. Never mind; he'll let her know when she returns that he has penetrated her ruse._ _

___No, better,_ he thinks, springing to his feet and grabbing his coat. He'll go find her now and tell her. _I see through you. There is no part of yourself that you can hide from me.__ _

__It isn't until Sherlock is out of the flat and standing on the pavement, judging the most likely trajectory for Joanna's walk, that it occurs to him how strange all of this is. He is far more than preoccupied. Ordinary language cannot begin to capture the bizarre sensation he has fallen prey to. It's as though he has become the host of some alien intelligence, directing all his thoughts and energies along unfamiliar paths. It is akin to being possessed._ _

__For as long as he's known Joanna she has inhabited a greater share of his mental real estate than any one individual has ever laid claim to before. He has tracked the movements of many people, but never before was he motivated by fear. _No, be precise_ \--he has felt fear before, the urgency that comes with knowing that lives stand in the balance, but always before it was the fear of failure, fear of a lost life life hanging on his conscience (he does have one, thank you Anderson.) _ _

__With Joanna, it is always different. The fear that she inspires is selfish. It rises from the awareness that any harm done to her will harm _him_ , in ways that a direct assault upon his person is incapable of. _ _

__Truthfully, he resents it. He resents Joanna's ability to hijack his every faculty. Ever since things…changed between them, he has ceased to feel like himself. The things that have always mattered to him matter less when they come into competition with Joanna, and he doesn't like that. He wants the things that have always been important to him to remain important. He never asked for all his priorities to be overshadowed by this one maddeningly chaotic element, Joanna's uncontrollable, unmanageable insistence on doing things in her own way, in potentially _damaging_ ways. Is it always like this, he wonders, when two people…. _bond_? In the course of his career he has conceived a grudging respect for the power of human passion to motivate and direct human action. Now he is beginning to think that love--if love is indeed what one would call this--is simply a disease, a kind of neurological decay, creating symptoms like any other disorder._ _

__And from what he has observed, it is a disorder without cure. There are only two alternatives: one is to surgically excise the source of the malignancy. Except that Martin and Windibank and Moriarty had all tried, and Sherlock had fought them, had pitted every synapse and neuron against them, like an immune-compromised host fighting off its own antibodies._ _

__The other option is to find a way of managing the symptoms. Ease oneself into a symbiosis with the parasite. For which he must have her cooperation, and she refuses, _damn_ her, to cooperate. It's as though she doesn't know what she does to him. Even though Sherlock had _told_ her._ _

___I will never understand what you've done to me._ Even to him, the memory is like something from a dream. He thinks he has been clinging to the dream, waiting for Joanna to rejoin him there. But that was a mistake. She's awake now. If they're to find common ground, he must join her in the world she lives in, a world full of jagged edges and harsh light. He has to know whether this thing between them can survive outside the moment in which it was born. In him it has taken root, stubborn as a weed clinging to an eroded hillside, but for her perhaps it was something more fragile, a bloom that will only wither if it is left in the dark. Exposing it to examination and scrutiny may kill it. _ _

__But one way or another, he has to know._ _

__When Sherlock finally tracks Joanna down she is clearly on the return leg of her journey. He finds her trudging past a bakery more than a mile away from Baker Street. Her gait is labored, her shoulders hunched, her hands thrust into the pockets of her coat. Sherlock watches her clutching her broken arm under her coat to prevent it being jostled by passers-by._ _

__She looks so painfully unremarkable out here in the world. Small, weary, sparrow-plain, like a faint grey smear in a charcoal drawing. No one would pick her out of a group of three. If anything could prove the limits of Sherlock's powers, it is this; two years ago his gaze would have passed over her as it passes over the bins and pavement signs. She has mastered protective coloring, and he knows it must be self-defense, because if everyone could see the light inside her the traffic would stop, pedestrians would gape, and greedy, pleading hands would clutch at her hems._ _

__The mere thought makes his fists clench. Unbidden, his legs begin to carry him forward. He breaks into a jog, ignoring the curious, irritable expressions of the people he pushes aside._ _

__He's less than ten feet away before Joanna spots him. Automatically, she tenses. Her shoulders square, her back straightens, and Sherlock realizes that she's not seeing _him_ , only the shape of a man barreling towards her with intent. He comes to an abrupt halt in the middle of the pavement. Waits for her to see him. _Wills_ her to see---everything. _ _

__A second later her expression changes from wariness to resignation. When she joins him at last there's a spark of what might be amusement in her eye._ _

__"What are you doing out here?" she says. "Something come up?"_ _

__With such a question put to him, Sherlock finds he has no answer. He looks at her mutely, and whatever she sees in his expression causes her to frown._ _

__"You all right?" She pokes his arm. "You look a bit white. I mean, that's your natural state, but…"_ _

__He shakes his head. His hand closes around her elbow. "Come home," he says._ _

__"Yeah, I was….doing that."_ _

__"With me."_ _

__"…okay. Right. Home it is."_ _


End file.
